As part of my photography course, I have to track my development on a blog. The posts from September 2011 until January 2012 are part of a module called Project Management, for which I was required to work in a group of eight students to create an exhibition. The blog followed every step we took in order to create a successful gallery. The blog posts starting from September 2012 follow my final year on the course. I'll be documenting my research and analysis of my final year projects, as well as include notes of my Professional Practice unit - which prepares us for a range of post graduate options. Finally it also looks at a project called New Creatives, where I'll be working alongside an artists to help college students get more involved with art.

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Monday, October 31, 2011

I phoned the lady from the property management company again today to get a final confirmation on the venue next door and it has been confirmed! I will have to phone them up again on Friday the 2nd of December in order to make an appointment to collect the keys. I will be able to get the keys on the Monday before we open and am allowed to keep it until the exhibition is finished. This means we will have twice as much space as we have now, which gives us a lot more to work with!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

I visited the Lightbox gallery in Woking a couple weeks ago and it was quite helpful towards this project. There wasn't a photography exhibition on at the moment, but I enjoyed it regardless. The exhibition that was on throughout the whole gallery was called "From the Realm of the Dragon: The Ceramic Heritage of Zibo, China. Every room had different collections of ceramics in them, but I think that it was thanks to the layout of the rooms that it didn't look clustered.

The gallery was very spacious and instead of looking at the ceramics as something ordinary, having it exhibited in such a large area it looked sacred and the ceramics are fully appreciated. All the rooms in the gallery were designed in the 'white cube' style, again making everything look inspirational.

There were two rooms that didn't take part in this exhibition. One of the rooms was the completely opposite of the 'white cube' style of presenting. To me it looked very full, almost too busy to appreciate the work, and there seemed to be a lot going on. There were large stickers with text on the floor (left), it had tv screens with headsets, many artefacts, a dress up area for children and much more. Although it did take into consideration a bit of what everyone likes, it was almost too full. The part of the exhibition I did like were the photos. There were presented in grid format matching photographs with artefacts.

The other room was similar to the ceramics gallery in the way that it was very simple. The room had paintings all along the walls and in the middle were about 20 chairs facing the walls where people could sit and view the work. It was very simple, yet professional. I like the elegance a 'white cube' gallery portrays, it is simple and to the point. There aren't any distractions and people will only focus on your work.

The theme of this project is territories. To me the word comes across as quite menacing and alarming so for this project I wanted to steer clear of that definition and look at social groups and neighbourhoods – a more positive adaptation. I found an old Nunnery in the Woking area which had been converted into houses and apartments while still keeping its Victorian style architecture. My photographs portray the reconstruction of the Nunnery into a modern living space by combining the architecture with contemporary interiors of the houses.

We have contacted about 60 companies to see whether they could sponsor us and in exchange we could put their logo on all of our social networking sites and our website. Unfortunately we haven't heard anything positive back yet. Most of the companies have said no because they get so many requests. Some companies, like Starbucks, do want to help and have said this on their website: "Contributing positively to our local communities is important to Starbucks and our stores will be happy to support local community events in any way possible. Please contact the store manager of your local store to find out what support they may be able to offer you". Hopefully at least one of the many companies we have emailed are able to help us as anything will be appreciated.

We have got our first fundraising event coming up! We are going to have a bake sale at the Eldon building on the 11th of November from 12 until 3pm. The money we raise will be used either for leaflet printing of for the venue. We are all chipping in some money to get all of the products we need to make cakes. My mum has kindly given us a few cake mixes, which means we'd only need to buy milk and eggs.

I am also going to contact Krispy Kreme to see whether they could provide us with some doughnuts we could sell and make use of their fundraising scheme. We are aiming to earn about £100 from this bake sale.

Hannah has been in contact with the Fawcett Inn to get a date for the Pub Quiz. We have already gotten permission to have a pub quiz, although we haven't chosen a date yet. We have created a mock-up leaflet of the event so when we know the details we can just put them on and distribute the leaflet.
Kate has managed to get a hold of a quiz book where we will get some questions from. We haven't decided on a prize yet but I think the prize will be something like a bottle of wine.

We have finally got a leaflet design. It has taken a while because everyone was looking for different things. During the meeting we had on Thursday, we looked at all of the leaflets that had been designed so far and decided to make something that included everything. We really liked the idea of having a photo of teas and cakes on the leaflet, although in the end it just looked a bit too full.

The final leaflet design has been created by Tom and I. We looked at all the leaflets and all the information that had to be on the leaflet. We didn't want the leaflet to look to busy nor too empty. We wanted to show it was an exhibition and that we are part of the University of Portsmouth. It shows our other networking sites as well as our website and a QR code. It shows two sponsors as well as the obvious information such as what, when and where.

We decided on printing 5000 leaflets, although in the meeting everyone agreed on the fact that 5000 might be a bit too much, although 500 wouldn't be enough. I emailed aboreal printing (who gave us the best deal) to see whether we could print 1000 leaflets. I haven't heard anything back yet, but hopefully I will soon.

Since being part of Vistaprint I have been getting emails non-stop about amazing discounts I can get on the website, on Thursday I collected £2 from everyone in my group and ordered some things from Vistaprint. I ordered some things both for me (which I obviously paid for myself) and for the group. For myself I ordered 250 business cards and a business card holday (only £0.34 for both!) and for the group I ordered a small banner with our logo and website on it, 25 small magnets and100 postcards of our leaflet. I could only order 4 things because if I added anything more I wouldn't get a discount. The total price was only £5.35 although there was £11.57 shipping and £3.40 VAT, although without the savings I would have spent about £60. I should receive this order in 7 days, I might want to order some more things from Vistaprint, although we have to wait for fundraising before we can do anything else.

We got the contract for Ultraviolet which is pretty straight forward. It says we cannot play loud music, aren't allowed to have access amounts of alcohol and can't break anything. We are getting the venue for two weeks but are only paying for one. We have decided we want the venue from the 28th of November until the 12th of December. This way, in the first week we have it we can display our artea photography posters in the window. This might be able to spark some interested for the locals who walk past it everyday.

It is about 90% certain that we have the venue next door as well. I phoned the company again because I hadn't heard anything back and the lady who I spoke to last time explained that she contacted the owner and he said it would be fine to get the venue if it hadn't been rented out by then. Because the exhibition is only 5 weeks away, she said it is highly unlikely someone is going to rent it out before then. She also told me that we could get the venue for free and have it for a whole week! The owner is currently on holiday but will be back today. The lady I spoke to will phone the owner again to decide when I can pick up the keys and so I can get a quick viewing of the place. After she has done that she will phone me again.

Adam has spoken to Joe Alabaster (Ultraviolet Owner) and asked him whether he has a risk assessment for the place, he doesn't so we will have to make our own. He also asked if Joe has a ramp for wheelchair access and he does! He'll put that in for the opening. The problem is that we have found out that Tyran's wheelchair doesn't fit through the door, at the moment we are hoping that the door to the second venue will be large enough to fit a wheelchair through.

Our website has now officially launched! There are still a few things that aren't quite working yet but we will be fixing that in the next couple of days. We have already got 180 views since it has been launched so it is already started to get popular.

When you first open the website, you will see the logo and you will have to click on the leaf, this brings you to the home page. There is a little introduction of the event on there as well as a link to twitter so that you can immediately see what has been happening on twitter. There is a menu to the side of the page which consists of the exhibiting, the photographers, contact us, sponsors, fundraising and partners. The exhibition page displays a photo of our venue, Ultraviolet, and also displays the location on a map. It includes the opening times and explains who will be giving out teas and cakes on the opening day. The photographers page shows a list of all the photographers who are in our group and when you click on a name it takes you to a short bio, a gallery and contact details for that specific person. Contact us contains all of our emails as well as the arteaphotography email: contactus@arteaphotography.net. When you click on sponsors it shows a list of all the people that have helped us out so far and who are willing to give us a discount. Under fundraising it shows all of our fundraising ideas and explains when and where we will be fundraising. Lastly, the partners page has links to other groups in our year who are also having exhibitions.

The website will be constantly updated, just like twitter and facebook as there will always be new sponsors or new fundraising events. Check out www.arteaphotography.net to find out when our next fundraising event is!

Sorry for not posting for a while, I have been having trouble with the internet!

Both me and Tom have been updating the twitter site and tweeting away. We have managed to get 14 followers and one of the people we are following has tweeted back and asked for our website so they can promote it for us. We are still trying to get more and more followers but the only way to do that is to keep tweeting!

Since Laura is on holiday this week I am also in charge of the facebook page. We have got 26 people that "like" our page and 14 people have "talked about our event". It is important that we keep updating both our twitter and our facebook page to keep people interested.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

I decided I wanted to be in charge of the Twitter page. This is my very first time on twitter, ever, so it's been a bit of a complicated start. The most difficult thing on twitter must be the fact that everything has an extremely short word limit, as you can tell I quite like typing away! When I logged onto the page there was 1 post and we had 0 followers. Not a great start! I added a few more updates and decided to contact lots of local twitter companies (that look into events around Portsmouth) and asked the whether they could possibly promote us.

To the left is a little snapshot from our twitter feed. If you click on it the image will be enlarged. It shows all the tweets I've written to other twitter groups but also shows that we have 4 followers! Pretty exciting news! I'm still not quite sure how to use twitter, but I quite like it. It's something new and interesting and I'm always up for learning new stuff.

The image below shows that we are promoting our twitter on facebook. This might results into more followers as well. Tom brother is also on twitter and has a few followers so Tom is going to see whether he could get his brothers followers to follow us as well. I think right now I'll have to keep tweeting and hope to gain more followers!

Friday, October 21, 2011

We had a lecture a couple days ago about risk assessment. It basically thought us that we need to look at all the little details, even if things seem harmless to us we need to think of any kind of possible risks. The three main things to look at are the setting up of the gallery, the actually exhibition and finally the dismantling of the exhibition.

Setting up:

While setting up the exhibition we need to make sure that all the fire exits are still reachable. We have a small venue with one door so that basically means we cannot build anything by the door. If we are going to be building something that requires a framework we need to be 100% that the framework won’t collapse or that it won’t be slippery. If we are adding a podium to our show we need to make sure there isn’t any slipping or tripping hazard and if we get a ladder in to hang something up high we need to check that out before we use it too. We always need to consider cables as people can easily trip on them.

The exhibition:

We aren’t allowed to have anything near the door. There needs to always be a 1 meter wide pathway throughout the exhibition to get to the door (in case of a fire). If we have tables and chairs we need to make sure they are all in working order. When using lights, we need to make sure they don’t flash as anyone with epilepsy could react to it badly.

Dismantling:

The dismantling procedure would be quite similar to setting up. Make sure nothing is in the way of the fire exit, there aren’t any wires to trip on etc.

Another thing we need to consider is that we have quite a high step up to get into the gallery. This is a tripping hazard so need to be noted down. Joe Alabaster said that he might be able to get a ramp (for wheelchair access) which would be less of a hazard but I think we will also end up putting some yellow and black tape up on the floor to make sure it catches people’s eyes. Another hazard by the door would be a slipping hazard if it is wet. The exhibition will be held in December and it could be snowy or rainy outside. If people come inside with their wet shoes it will get very slippery. We might have to invest in getting a mat to make sure it doesn’t get wet inside.

We must ask Joe Alabaster for an electrical certificate to see whether all the lights are allowed to be used. We will also ask him whether he has got a risk assessment of the place so we can get an idea of what we need to write down.

For the chairs we are hiring/buying we might need to ask the University whether they could lend us a van. We would use the van to move chairs from one area to the other. This eliminates the hazard of us falling while holding the chairs or getting back problems for example.

Although some things might seem a bit silly and pointless to write down, if anything does happen and we haven’t put it down on the risk assessment form we might get it big trouble. If we get taken to court, the risk assessment form is one of the first things they look at and it could save us a lot of trouble!

I borrowed the book "Exhibiting Photography", by Shirley Read, from the library and it has been a huge help to me. Below are some notes I took thanks to the book - it basically covers the idea of what an exhibition is and all the steps we need to take along the way to get it up and running. I do want to apologise for the length of this post!

What is an Exhibition?

--Any conventional exhibition space (which can include commercial and publicly and privately funded galleries and museums)

--A variety of other spaces where work is sometimes shows (such as community centres, open studios, cafes, bars, restaurants, libraries, cinema and theatre foyers, schools, colleges, and churches)

--The street and public art (including hoardings, projections, performances, hospitals, and other public buildings)

--Photographic competitions that result in an exhibition

--Exhibition catalogues, publications and press images

--CDs

“I completed a major piece of work and then sent out the usual promotional information to curators and editors. Much to my dismay I heard nothing for over a year – then out of the blue, in the space of a fortnight, I received exhibition offers from two curators. My advice to photographers is not to give up or lose confidence in the work. Don’t put it away and forget it!” – Grace Lau, photographer

8 Reasons to exhibit:

--Getting the work seen

--Selling photographs

--It’s a career marking point

--To get feedback about the work

--It’s good practice

--It marks the completion of the work

--To build up connections and a mailing list

--It’ll lead to something else

Promotional Tools:

--Business cards – easily kept in a photographer’s wallet and is generally useful when making new contacts.

--Postcards – people enjoy postcards and they are a good way to circulate an image.

--CDs – useful in that they can be posted or left with a potential client or curator as a reference, record or reminder.

--Portfolios – to show curator a potential show

--Website – hold a broader range of work and can reach to a wider geographically distant audience

What is the curator’s role?

“Curators are, above all, the institutionally recognized experts of the art world establishment, whether they operate inside an institution or independently. More than art critics or gallery dealers, they establish the meanings and status of contemporary art through its acquisition, exhibition, and interpretation”. – Mari Carmen Ramirez, curator of Latin American Art

Presentation:

Presentation is crucial to the installation of photographs in the gallery. Photographers talk about the presentation of their work all the time, unlike painters and sculptors for whom presentation is usually a secondary consideration. For both curator and photographer, discussion of different options in mounting, framing, sizing and editing or sequencing work can take priority over discussion of the photograph itself.

These are the words of Shirley Read, although I do not agree with the above statement. I think that the most important thing is the photograph. I would rather want people to speak about my photograph and its composition, colours and meaning rather than the way it is presented.

Hiring a gallery:

Hiring a gallery brings with it all the advantages of having a space specifically designed for showing artwork. The gallery should also have systems in place for promoting the work and attracting visitors.

One of the key things to remember when you do hire a gallery is that, as far as the gallery is concerned, taking down the show is as important as putting it up. If you leave the gallery in a mess, that particular gallery won’t hire it to you again and may bill you for cleaning, damage and redecoration.

--Organizing gallery attendants, security personnel, or invigilators during opening times

--Preparing to hang the work and clean up afterward

--Writing all the exhibition texts including captions and titles

--Pricing and insuring work

Text:

One of the most neglected areas of exhibition preparation is generally the text. This is often because photographers see themselves as visual rather than verbal people and either dislike writing or ignore its importance in showing the work. But exhibitions almost always entail a certain amount of textual material.

Text should include:

--An introduction to the exhibition and texts that accompany the images or different sections of the exhibition

One of the audiences an artist can reach is a local audience – casual passersby as well as regular visitors, people who have seen a review in a local paper or heard through word of mouth that the exhibition is interesting. Local audiences are sometimes slightly resistant to looking at artwork, feeling perhaps that it is outside their experience to visit a gallery, so it is worth making a particular effort to bring them into the exhibition.

--Local newspapers

--Talk to owners of shops, restaurants, wine bars or cafe’s in the nearby area

--Invite passersby

Documenting and evaluation:

--You need to keep a record for you own reference and c.v. As unbelievable as it seems at the time, you may well have forgotten basic details of the exhibition (such as dates and names of co-exhibitors) by the time you need to quote them

--You need to keep a record to show to galleries, critics, curators or publishers and to use when giving a talk or lecture about the work in the future

--It will be useful when looking for promotion, sponsorship or funding in the future

--It will be useful as a visual record of work that is on tour, on loan, sold or in storage

--It will be useful to keep track of work sold

--It may be useful for insurance purposes

--Galleries are sometimes fairly short-lived, and many galleries are poor record keepers. Do not assume that you will be able to ask them for information in a few years’ time

--The evaluation should provide you with concrete evidence of what works and what does not. It will be a useful reference for every exhibition in the future and help you analyse and use the experience you gained

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Along with the website, we have created a bigger online presence. We have decided to create a twitter page (http://twitter.com/arteaexhibition) where we will update our followers with what we have been up to. We have also created a facebook event and a facebook page. The event already has 47 people attending and 10 maybe's, so that's looking good! A few people have commented on it saying which day they would be coming, this will definitely be good to know because we don't want the place to be too crowded! At the moment our facebook page only has 18 likes. All the members of our group are trying to invite people to join our page for regular updates of our progression as well as getting some sneak peaks of the work we are exhibiting.

As we haven't got any fundraising at the moment we have been working out what needs to be paid so far. The venue for the whole week is £30 and there is a £60 deposit. The domain name (for a whole year) is £7. We are thinking that we should take about £90 our to pay towards cake ingredients and to furniture hire. Printing 500 leaflets would be about £35 (from refresh printing)

All together this would come to about £187 which comes to £24.70 each. I think this is a very reasonable price for each of us to contribute to the project. Laura and Adam are in charge of money so we will be paying them.

Today we had to present what we have done up until now to our lectures. It was a marked presentation so we had about 3 meetings (2 in one day!) to sort out the presentation and what everyone was going to say.

The presentation started off with introducing our idea of artea and why we wanted to have this approach. This was followed by the many logo's we came up with and after that a general introduction to all the venues we had been looking at. From them on it started to get more specific. Adam spoke about Ultraviolet and mentioned where it was located and the size of it. I then added that I spoke to the venue next door about perhaps renting that as well. Laura had drawn up a floor plan of the space so she had a little chat about what would go where.

The next slide was about the tea ladies. Hannah had been in contact with a small little tea shop on Albert Road, she absolutely loves it there so decided to go in and ask the owner whether they could cater at our exhibition. They were very willing and told her that they would supply the tea for free and have the cakes paid for. This is how they would be making their profit so they didn't need any money from us! We assured them that we would promote their business both on our website as well as at the gallery itself.

Then it was my turn. I spoke about the leaflet designs as well as the companies I have contacted about printing. I explained that we wanted to have quite simple leaflets that are easy to understand. Tom and Kate also made leaflets and added a QR code. This basically means that if you have a smart phone you can scan in the QR code and it will take you directly to the artea website.

The following slide was by Naomi. She had contacted 17 companies that could possibly help us with our exhibition. One of them was Tesco, they said that they would give us free teas and cakes! We would only have the tea ladies in for one day so Tesco would help us out for the other 2 days. She also heard back from a photography magazine (www.ephotozine.com) who let us have our poster advertised in their online magazine! Another company she heard back from was blurb. They are willing to give us 25% off on all photobooks. This will definitely come in handy seeing as we are printing portfolios!

The slide after that was mine again. This one was about advertising. It basically stated that we will get an advertisement in a photography magazine. It also had future ideas such as talking to the first and third years to see whether they would be interested to come and view our show. We are going to distribute our leaflets in as many places as we can. We are currently thinking of having a few leaflets in Eldon, standing outside in Commercial Road and handing people leaflets as well as handing leaflets out at train stations. We want to hang up posters in Eldon and other University buildings, as well as hang them up in some shops (if we can get permission) and hang them in Ultraviolet before the opening day (if possible). Another important aspect of advertising is business cards. We want to get them both for artea and for ourselves. If people want to contact us after the show has finished they could get our details on the business card! We are also getting pens (mentioned in an earlier post) and we are thinking of also getting "tea-shirts" which we would wear when distributing the leaflets and on the day itself.

Another important thing to consider is fundraising. We haven't manage to earn any money yet but we have got some things lined up. Hannah has contacted the student union and asked whether we could have a bakesale there. They said it would be fine if we get a hygiene certificate. We are also going to have a pub quiz at the Fawcett inn. Hannah has also spoken to them and they are very willing. They want to turn that pub into more of a student pub and are therefore very eager to help us. The pub quiz would be £1 to enter and will have a whole range of questions. The team who wins will obviously get a prize but we haven't decided on what yet.

Tom finished off the presentation by talking about the website: www.arteaphotography.net. He explained what would be on the website and thoroughly went through all the sections the website includes.

When we visited Ultraviolet, about a week ago, we saw that the place to the right of the gallery was empty. We all thought it would be a brilliant idea to phone them up and ask whether we could hire that space as well. This would mean we would have enough space to both put work up on the wall as well as have our portfolio's and a little sitting area for the teas and cakes. However, everyone kind of kept putting it off. We were so excited about having Ultraviolet and designing leaflets and creating websites and facebook groups we kind of lost track of the idea of hiring next door.

This morning I decided to (finally) phone them up and ask them whether it was possible. I spoke to a very kind lady and explained to her what we were looking to do. She said it shouldn't be a problem and told me she would phone up the landlord and ask him whether it was possible and how much it would cost. She will ring me back at some point tomorrow or during the weekend to let me know what's going on. Hopefully we can get the space next door for a reasonable price, it would solve some of the issues we've got at the moment.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I have contacted 5 companies who print leaflets and asked whether we could get any kind of discount from them. This is the email I got back from a company called Vistaprint:

Dear Elaine de Vries:Thanks for contacting Vistaprint, where it's easy to make an impression for less.In response to your email please be informed that we can provide you with a discount all you have to do is place your order through and call our toll free number at 0800.496.0350 so that we can activate the promotion over the phone.Thank you for choosing Vistaprint.
Sincerely,
Med Azzouz Ben Dhif
Vistaprint Customer Service

I emailed another company called Refresh studio. I explained to them that a group and I had to exhibit our work and had to do all the advertising for it too. They emailed me back and asked me what exactly I wanted to print. I replied that we wanted to get 500 A5 colour printed leaflets to which she replied:

500 130gsm leaflets will cost £59

I will do them for £35 for you in the interests of your request.

Lee

The third company I heard back from is called aboreal printing. This is the email they sent me:

A few years ago I went to visit the Henry Moore foundation with my Fine Arts class. It is a whole new way of exhibiting work. Moore's sculptures are scattered across a massive stretch of land so when visiting you can both enjoy the outstandingly large sculptures as well as the beautiful scenery.

The video above explains more about his sculptures and the reason why he wants to display them in such a way.

The video doesn't relate to photography but I think it is important to look at this kind of exhibition space as well. It is the complete opposite of what we have got at the moment. We have got a small easily crowded space whereas Henry Moore has got the whole countryside. When I was at his sculpture park there was so much empty space, yet it didn't seem empty. The sculptures were placed quite far apart from one another - for some sculptures it took about 5-10 minutes to walk between them. It it almost like a massive build up for his work. When walking towards it, it looks small in the distance but keeps getting larger and larger. Once you get there you are able to walk through the sculpture and look at the close details. It is inspiring.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The gallery is a perfect way to promote myself and get noticed. Perhaps this is the start of a new carreer? Because of the I decided to get my website all sorted out and ready as though the exhibition is tomorrow. I have paid for an account so my website can be published and I have paid for a domain name. My website is www.elainedevries.com. Very exciting news!

Having my own website is going to be so much easier. It will be posted on www.arteaphotography.net as well as be printed on my business cards. I will try and get my website posted in as many places as I can to get noticed. The website will have a link to my blog so if people happen to stumble upon my website they can easily get to my blog. This will create more awareness of our exhibition. The photograph added to this post is a photograph I took myself with a template of how I would create my business card. This isn't final yet, just to see what I could create. I quite like the idea of getting different photos on every business card, although I'm not sure how I would do that. This business card is created on the vistaprint website, although I might look into how I could print business cards at home and how much that would cost.

We had another team meeting on Monday where we discussed our progress from the last team meeting as well as look at what we still need to do. We haven't been able to find a venue for the bake sale as of yet, so I decided it might be possible for me to have a bake sale at my old school. We had a few fundraisers back when I still went there and always managed to earn a lot of money. The only downfall of this is that it would cost about £20 to get there by train and then we'd need more money to bake everything- in the end we might loose more money than we earn. We are also contacting a pub called the Fawcett inn and asking them weather we could possibly host a quiz night as a fundraiser. The Fawcett inn are trying to make their pub more of a student pub and hopefully will be interested in something like this.

We also need to get a floor plan for Ultraviolet. We have got the dimensions now so we know what to do with the place, but if we have a floor plan we can start to draw in where we would put the chairs and tables etc. We also need to phone up the owner of Ultraviolet to ask him when the money and the deposit are due by. Everyone is giving Laura (who is in charge of all the money) £20.70. This covers the deposit, the space, the website and the ingredients for the cakes.

Together with another member of the group, I have been assigned to look into getting chairs and tables. There are many cheap places on Fawcett Road so we need to ask whether it is possible to rent, purchase or put a deposit on some of the items. Dominic has just got back to us saying that a place called "the ark" on Albert Road sells chairs for about £5 or less. They would all be mismatched and odd chairs, but it is worth looking into. My friends housemate works at the Fleet and he recently got a stack of wooden garden chairs. I might be able to get those from him for free. Although they wouldn't be very comfortable I suggested that we could put pillows on them to make it look nice and comfortable.

As I am still part of the advertising team, I am also in charge of emailing printing companies to see whether we can get any kind of discount on our prints. As I mentioned in the last post, I have contacted vista print and have been looking into a few more companies regarding printing services. I haven't heard anything back yet, but we'll just keep trying!

We also decided it's time to promote our event on facebook. We are creating both a facebook page (for people to "like") and an event page. The facebook page will be similar to the blog as we will regularly be posting updates regarding the process of our exhibition along with bake sales we will host and other fundraising events. The event group will have details of the exhibition and will work as an online flyer!

We have also decided on the opening times of our exhibition. The opening night, Thursday the 8th of December, and Friday the 9th of December we will open from 1pm until 6pm. We decided we wanted to have an afternoon tea time exhibition rather than an evening exhibition. Although this does limit us in the sense that business people will be working between those hours we decided that on Saturday we will be open from 11 until 6. This will give us the whole day to appeal to people who work on weekdays.

We have another meeting coming up on Wednesday where we will discuss everything mentioned above and to see how far we have gotten. On Thursday we have to present our work in a marked presentation so therefore we have decided to meet on Thursday as well to get all the finished touches done. We need to have as much sorted as possible by Thursday!!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Again, being part of the advertising team I've been looking into where we can get the cheapest (yet good quality) leaflets and such from. I've been looking at the website www.vistaprint.co.uk. They offer a whole range of free products including business cards and pens. These two things will be very important at the exhibition. If our exhibition is successful someone might want our business card to contact us in the future. This way we can get connections! I reckon pens will be good to get because everyone always lends pens to everyone else and they end up absolutely everywhere! This is another great way to get the word around of our exhibition.

The website also sells posters, banners, bumper stickers, window decals, handouts, postcards, brochures, note pads, envelopes, note cards, t-shirts, caps, hoodies, magnets, mugs, name tags and much more. Now although ALL of these things would be very useful, we can't have everything unfortunately. I have emailed the company asking whether it would be possible to get a discount on some of the things we want to order so I'll have to wait and see for now.

I have been put on the advertising team and been looking at making leaflets as well as where we can print our leaflets and what else we want to print. On the right is a leaflet I have designed. Since we are 100% sure on the venue now as well as the dates I added all of that to it. We have got the venue from Monday the 5th until Monday the 12th. The first two days are for setting up and getting everything ready. the opening will be held on the 8th of December and it will remain open until the 10th. Then the last two days are for clearing up the place and making sure it's in the same state as it was when we got it.

I thought it would be important to add that we are from the University of Portsmouth as well as adding that we have teas and cakes along with free admission. If people have to pay to get in, a lot less people will arrive. The only thing that is missing is the opening times as we haven't completely sorted that out yet. On the bottom is the website we have created just in case they need more information.

Everyone was very pleased with the leaflet and had a few bits and bobs they'd change about it. This week everyone has been assigned to create leaflets and we will see which on we will end up using.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Since one of the tasks I have is finding a new venue I thought I'd get started straight away. A venue is still the most important thing and without it we have nothing. Although we do have a venue, I'd like another venue in the surrounding area or a larger venue for a cheap price.

I have found this website: http://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/media/Community_Venue_Guide.pdf. It consists of a lot of venues in Portsmouth where we could possiblyhave our exhibition. It also tells us what is included, such as disable access, a kitchen etc. Through this we might be able to find the perfect venue that is a good size, is a decent price and has everything we need. At the moment I have emailed a few places and am just waiting to hear back.

We had another meeting yesterday before the lecture where we discussed the roles we'd have to do, ideas about the logo, how we should present our work and a little to do list. Since it has pretty much been decided to get the Ultraviolet venue we have based the notes around this. Money-wise we would have to pay £30 for the venue (£3.33 each) plus a £60 deposit (which we'd get back by the end). We also have to pay £7 for the domain name (£0.77 each).

The roles include who will be the boss, who does advertising, who helps with sponsorship and fundraising, who does the website, who contacts the council and who could chat to the other groups to see what they have been up to. I haven't really been assigned anything within that so I am going to help with advertising and trying to get the word out as much as I can (including giving out leaflets, talking to freshers etc).

When it comes to presenting our work - which has been the main problem for me - the group has decided that we want to have portfolios and maybe 1 or 2 photos on the wall. We could maybe have installation pieces, projects on the floor, projections, hanging work from the ceiling, or mounted and framed prints. I'd like to mount my work and hang it up on the wall. The wall space is very limiting for me as I want to have A3 prints (at least 4). I am not sure how all of this is going to work out but we will discuss that in more detail in the next meeting.

Our to do list includes finding a venue for the bake sale, find a different venue (or another venue) - which is what I am part of - make posters (I am also doing this), get information about where we could print our work the cheapest, measure the dimensions of Ultraviolet, finish the logo and find the name of the font used, phone the council and ask whether we could advertise on the big screen, find out about hiring chairs and tables.

The idea behind the exhibition now is to have a little sitting area where people can read books while drinking tea and eating cakes. We will print out a portfolio (perhaps 2) and let people sit down, relax with a cup of tea and look through our books. This is a very different experience from what most galleries are like and so ours will (hopefully) stand out. Although a negative could be that people will enjoy the company more than they will actually look at our work.

Another idea is saying that the visitors are only allowed in the exhibition for a certain amount of time to prevent overcrowding. The place will get very packed very quickly. I do think that putting a time limit on how long people are allowed in the gallery isn't a very good idea, although it will stop it from getting too packed, it also stops people from fully appreciating the work. Another way of preventing the place to overcrowd is that when we are printing the leaflets we put different times on every leaflet. This way people will come at different times during the day.

It might be worth getting name tags, there will be a lot of people in a small space and when someone has a question about someone's work they will know who to approach. The main idea behind our exhibition is to create a more personal and intimate experience for people to come and view our work while drinking warm tea and eating cakes.

We have a website! One of the members of our group has created a website: www.arteaphotography.net. The first picture on the left hand side is the original website. It is quite plain with nothing special. It has a lot of links back to tea - when you opened the website it said "start the brew" and when you clicked on it you got the the main page. The website has a home page - which would have a short introduction, an exhibition page - which would have a little explanation about the venue and where it is located. The next page would be of the photographers and have a short bio of them. In the contact us section it would have each of our emails and websites and finally the sponsors page would have all the names of the sponsors.

The second picture shows a new layout of the website with the new logo on it. From this page you can also see we have set up a facebook page as well as a twitter account to keep people updated and maybe get more people interested in our exhibition. I wasn't a big fan of the layout so I had a chat with the guy who designed the website and told him my idea, which brings us to the third picture. This is just created in word, nothing fancy, just showing him how I'd have our website designed. The original website designed said it was too generic, but we decided to post it on the facebook group and see what the rest of the group thought of it. Both of us, however, want something simple and easy to navigate.

Lucy's graphic designer friend got back to us with a new logo. Well he made quite a few so we could choose what we preferred. The leaf has been converted into a camera, which I found a very clever idea. The logo seems so simple but at the same time none of us had thought out it. I am very impressed with the logo. We haven't decided which one to use yet but I'm leaning towards either the second one in the second row or the third one in the second row.

It feels as though the majority of the group has decided to go for the Ultraviolet gallery, although I am still not sure of the venue.I think that Ultraviolet is a bit too small for all 9 of us to exhibit our work as well as have visitors and teas and stuff. If we manage to get another place in the surrounding area it would be fine but I don't think we can have that on its own.

I do still think that the pyramid club is our best option at the moment. Although it is expensive we will have more than enough space to display our work (whether it be an installation, projection, A3 prints etc) as well as being able to have enough space for refreshments and possibly a live band. I'd rather pay extra to have enough space than have too little space. Another thing to consider is wheelchair access. Tyran isn't able to get inside ultraviolet and if he was able to he wouldn't be able to move around. The place also doesn't have running water so to get tea's we would have to get it from somewhere else.

This is my opinion of the place, although it used to be a gallery space it more typically used as an exhibition for a solo artist - not 9 people! I believe that the negatives outweigh the positives. The only positive is the price, is only £30 for the whole week plus a £60 deposit.

I have such a strong opinion because I think it's a very important project. It is our first chance in getting connections and promoting ourselves. If we end up in a gallery squashed together and not have enough space for visitors, it wouldn't look very professional. We want to have a nice spacious area where we can have as many visitors as we want, possibly have a live band to get even more visitors and have enough space for teas and cakes.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

"While Sherman is still photographing herself in a range of various guises, she has decidedly broken free of the frames that constrict her former work and has blown up photographs of an eclectic cast of characters to create a larger than life sized tableaux that extends throughout the two spaces of the gallery." - Michelle Schultz on www.dailyserving.com

Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 2010.

Cindy Sherman is an excellent example of stepping out of the box. This photograph is taken at her solo exhibition at Sprueth Magers. "The murals plaster the rooms like wallpaper, an effect furthered by the illustrative black and white backdrop, reminiscent of a Victorian woodlands as interpreted through home decor." (Michelle Schultz). Sherman's work hasn't got any boundaries, being surrounded by such massive images you almost feel immersed and engrossed into Shermans world. Although this doesn't follow the traditional concept of the 'white cube' it does still play upon a similar idea - the massive, graffiti-like, photos are on a white wall and therefore do stand out. Sherman has reached beyond the typical and created something new. " As one of the most successful artists of the past decades there is an immense amount of pressure to continually produce something new. " (Michelle Schultz). For more images and information click here.

The clip below is an interview with Cindy Sherman where she explains she wants to challenge herself:

As a group we still haven't made a final decision on the venue, it is getting to be quite frustrating as the group seems to be split in half at the moment. The first half is thinking about the pyramid club and how it would be a fantastic place to exhibit, there will be more than enough space and I believe that more people are willing to come to the pyramid centre than to an abandoned or vacant building. The pyramid club is quite an impressive place to have an exhibition and it'll be unique - at the same time though, the pyramid club is rather costly. The second half is thinking about getting a little venue called Ultraviolet (right) on Albert Road. It used to be a gallery space, but is currently empty. We can hire the space for a whole week for only £30! The space is very small though and I feel that with such a small space we will not be able to have creative freedom. We are going to view Ultraviolet tomorrow to get an idea of the gallery space - if it can accommodate 9 artists. If not then we are going to go with the pyramid club.

Monday, October 10, 2011

A lot of ideas about fundraising have been thrown around the group including bake sales, sponsored events, magic tricks, busking etc but it sounds harder than I originally thought. For a bake sale, you need to make sure that you actually make a profit - you don't want to spend £30 on baking materials and then earn £30 from selling the cakes. That would be useless! For busking (eg. playing an instrument on the street) you need a license, which would also cost money. It seems that in order to raise money you need to spend everything first.

A company who I personally love Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme has got its own fundraising page where it explains how to raise some money thanks to Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

www.krispykreme.co.uk/fundraising/raise-dough/

Need a more interesting way to raise money for your charity?

Whether you are a charity looking to raise money at a specific event or an individual looking for a different way to hit that sponsorship target, Krispy Kreme’s fundraising scheme is here to help.

From early on in our history, Krispy Kreme has supported charities and played an active role in the local community. We know that it is increasingly difficult to simply ask people to make a donation, which is why our scheme allows you to sell them something they’ll love, our doughnuts, whilst you make a profit for your charity!

I think that sounds pretty fabulous - and delicious of course. If we explain to Krispy Kreme we need to raise money for an exhibition they might be able to help us out. I have just sent them an email asking whether we can apply for fundraising as well seeing as we aren't a charity, however they say fundraising is for non-profit organisations too.

It’s really simple – you purchase our Original Glazed doughnuts from us at the special fundraising price of £3.95 a dozen, you sell them on for £7.95 per dozen or £1.20 per doughnut with your charity receiving all of the profit – couldn’t be easier! Alternatively we offer Krispy Kreme fundraising vouchers – you may like to buy vouchers in addition to, or instead of, doughnuts.

You are welcome to request hats, banners and balloons and, for the more ambitious amongst you, we even have a Krispy Kreme marquee you can hire.

Although we still aren't 100% sure of the venue, we decided it is important to start looking into other things such as who will be providing the tea and cakes. Will we bake everything ourselves or ask companies to help us out? Will we make all the tea ourselves or ask for free samples from companies? It is important we start acting upon these ideas as soon as possible, mainly due to the fact we want to appear professional towards the companies we contact. If we ask for free samples a week before the exhibition it will seem very disorganised and almost lazy.

We have decided to contact a few tea companies, including PG Tips, Twinnings, Yorkshire Tea, Clippers, and Whittard, and ask whether they could lend us a hand. I have decided to send an email to Whittard straight away (I'm a big fan of the shop) and explained to them who I am, that I'm a second year Photography student and the University of Portsmouth. I introduced the idea of "artea" and asked whether it was possible for them to lend us a hand! Hopefully we'll get something back from them soon - with good news of course!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Last year, as part of the course, I went to the Brighton Photo Biennial: "Brighton Photo Biennial is the largest and most exciting curated photography festival in the UK and with 60,000 visitors in 2010, one of the best attended in the world." (http://www.bpb.org.uk/about/). The reason of this trip was to closely evaluate the different types of exhibitions and gallery spaces as well as how the photographs were hung up.

The venue of the exhibition “Outside In”, by Stephen Gill, was BPD at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery in the Royal Pavilion Gardens. It was part of an exhibition named “Strange & Familiar: Three views of Brighton” and included three artists: Alec Soth, Rinko Kawauchi and Stephen Gill. Due to this exhibition being part of the Brighton Photo Biennial, it gained a lot of publicity. However, what also played a large roll in increasing the exposure is that it was held at the Museum and Art Gallery. This is a well known location, whereas some exhibitions were held in a garage or a little, unknown shop. Nevertheless, as the exhibition is in a gallery instead of a shop, the only audience it will target is those interested in art. If the exhibition is in a shop, a larger audience of a wider variety would visit as they could perhaps come across it unintentionally. Another way this exhibition gained publicity was due to the Brighton Photo Biennial website (www.bpd.org.uk), where it is possible to find information about Stephen Gill and where his work is located. Lastly, Stephen Gill had leaflets which were scattered around at every exhibition. The leaflets contained information about what his exhibition would be on and where it was located. Stephen Gill, thus, had relatively much publicity compared to other artists.

A very popular way of displaying work is according to the concept of the "white cube" (example above). This is a pristine white space where high expectations come into play and because of its 'sacred' status, any object placed within its walls acquire a special value. We are currently looking for venues that have white walls. Having white walls is very typical for photography exhibitions - when you type photography exhibition into google most images have white walls. The reason for this is that no matter what colour photograph you have or what theme, anything will fit with the white wall. If, for example, the wall is bright green and the photographs you have taken are bright green, it would look a bit silly and the photographs wouldn't stand out.

To the left are some more examples of the galleries in Brighton. A lot of the photographs were pinned up against the wall without any kind of backing (top left). I personally didn't like this presentation because the paper wasn't properly stretched out and thus looked bumpy. It also looked as though there wasn't much thought put into the displaying stage. Some other photographers had they work mounted and in a grid on the wall, it looked very organised and well thought out. Others had their photographs in frames, which is probably the easiest and way of displaying work. The photograph that is on the bottom left is taken through a hole in a garage. The garage door had a lot of holes in it through which an audience could look and inside they would see projects of the artists photographs. This was a very unique way of presenting work and I quite liked the idea of it - however, it was in his own garage in an area of Brighton I hadn't heard of before, he probably didn't have many people come over to his exhibition.

Another way of exhibiting work is on a small screen, this way you wouldn't have to think about printing costs, presentation costs and much more. Another positive is that the images will always be properly it, pictures on the wall might be in a darker corner for example, or a light may reflect on the photograph causing it to be harder to see. I do think, however, that this screen is a bit too small to view the photographs on and if it were to be my exhibition I would use a larger screen or perhaps a few screens next to each other so more people could view my work at the same time.

This exhibition to the right is part of the "Strange and Familiar" exhibition. It is similar to the white cube in the way that it is an empty room and the art is on the wall - however the walls are pink! The photos in the exhibition were taken from the point of view of a little girl, and that's why the walls are pink. The exhibition is making use of both photos and text to make it more interesting.

For my exhibition I want to either mount my prints and hang them on the wall or get glass frames for them. I think that the presentation is very important and it has to look very professional, the prints that were nailed to the wall didn't give off professionalism to me, although it was a proper exhibition.

Friday, October 7, 2011

We might have finally gotten a venue!! One of the girls in the group rang up Pyramid centre in Portsmouth, they do all sorts of things. They have a gym, swimming pool, spa but also have live events such as bands, they do birthday parties etc. The Pyramid centre can give us their "glass house" space on the 8th and 9th of December. However, for two days this would be £500 and for 1 day it would be £300. Since it will be a lot more useful to have it for two days we are considering this, it would be about £55 each which doesn't come down to too much money. We will just have to work extra hard to make sure we get some kind of funding!

Before yesterday's lecture, we all met up and discussed what we had done so far and what we still need to achieve. First the people on the venues team discussed what they had done, including me! We have phoned all the venues which we have found (a lot!!) but didn't have any luck. Most of the venues didn't want to lease their place for less than 3 months. Seeing as we only need it for a couple of days that was a definite no. One of the places we rang told us that someone was currently interested in their property, however if for some reason it was to be empty in December, we could have it. For one of the venues I rang I got a voicemail so I left a message and hopefully they'll get back to me soon. Fingers crossed!

Next the sponsor and fundraising team told us what they had done. Naomi emailed a lot of online magazines to ask them if they could publish an advert for us. Some of them got back to her and said that they could! They have also looked into contacting hp, canon, nikon, fuji, jessops and other camera related companies for any kind of funding or help. Another member has emailed Portsmouth council and asked whether we needed to have a license to serve alcohol at our event, they told him that we didn't need a license because we weren't selling anything but it would be advised to hang up "challenge 21" posters to make sure no minors drink.

Yesterday we started off with a lecture by Stella about exhibiting photographs and the different ways we can display our work, followed by a lecture by Denise Callender, the promotions manager of the creative industries.

Stella's lecture started off with a brief description of the history of exhibitions. She showed us a photograph of the interior of Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, and emphasized the fact that the whole interior was covered with paintings. It the renaissance, it was a tradition to cover absolutely everything. This is a huge contrast from the exhibition space that we use nowadays. She explained that the only places art was displayed, before modernism and the 'white cube' idea, was either in churches and places of worship, in wealthy people's collections (such as a wunderkammer) and in wealthy people's homes.

The origins of the 'white cube' style was inspired by artists studios. It was always a very neutral space and it embraced the modern concept of simple structures. From this moment on, more and more 'white cube' galleries started to appear. The white space meant that the area was a lot more focussed, it was almost as though art was isolated from its environment - a sacred space. Anything against a white wall will stand out, the object can be fully appreciated. It was an uninterrupted area with no interference. The 'white cube' became very persistent and even today this style remains to be the most dominant form of contemporary art display.

Denise Callendar explained to us that anything can be a gallery, you have to think out of the box. For example, you can use a corridor as a gallery space or a house, you can display it on the Portsmouth big screen or on youtube etc. She continued her lecture by telling us to explore whether there are any other events going on at the same time as yours, clashes could be a positive thing but could also end up being something bad. She went on to explain about the installation process and taking down the work at the end of the gallery. Things such as bringing out won toolkit, collecting work and little things like these can have a massive impact on our reputation. If the venue liked us, we might be asked to come back and show more work. It is all about professionalism.

She also gave us a few tips on making the leaflets such as include the dates, the title and explanation perhaps add a photograph to give the viewer an idea of what to expect. Also if we are going to have any talks or seminars add that to the leaflets too as people might be interested. We need to make sure that we develop a brand, this needs to be repeated on everything we have and on all advertisements. This will create an identity for us. The last important thing was make business cards - this way if people are interested in specifically my work they are able to contact me and ask me questions.

The whole lecture by Denise was very helpful and she gave us so many little tips and tricks in order to help us out. When we informed her we hadn't found a venue yet she was very keen on helping and told us she knows an empty space on Albert Road named ultraviolet. It used to be a gallery space but has recently gone out of business. She also let us know that if we were to have any more questions that we could email her whenever with whatever we needed!